SWEPT BY STORM

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20025, 5 September 1930, Page 11

SWEPT BY STORM

REPUBLIC OF DOMINICA DAMAGE AT CAPITAL CITY. WIND AT 150 MILES PER HOUR. (UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION —BY ELECTBIO TELEGRAPH COPYMGHT.) (Received September 4th, 7 p.m.) NEW YORK, September 3.

A hurricane, the speed of which is estimated at between 135 and 160 miles per hour, is reported to have devastated Santo Domingo, and is travelling northward into the Atlantic Ocean.

Cuba was deeply concerned to-night with the possibility that the westward course of the disturbance might change into a more northward direction and cut a swathe of destruction across the island.

Government reports received at Washington indicate that the barometer fell to a low point, 29.07, at one time in Santo Domingo. Cable companies having stations on the outskirts of the city report that all land lines are down, but that the extent ol the damage is unknown. Pan-American in a radio message received from Trinidad and the Havana newspaper, "El Pais,' was informed that Santo Domingo was the centre of a great storm with a 150 mile per hour wind lifting the roofs off houses, and that all communications and power lines were rapidlv going down. All meteorological stations in the Caribbean area liave issued warnings of the storm, which is to he second in intenHtv onlv to the Florida hurricane. Whether the wind will blow itself out before it reaches continental United States has not yet been indicated.

TWO DEATHS REPORTED. (BEtIUSH OFFICIAL WIItELESS.) (Received September 4th, 5.5 p.m.) RUGBY. September 3. It has been reported that a hurricane of considerable intensity passed over Dominion on September Ist. causing considerable damage to public and private property. There were two deaths and it was feared that all crops had been destroyed. So far as was known other islands in the Leeward Group had not been affected. [A hurricane struck Florida on September 16th-17th 1928. between Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach causing great property damage there, also flooded the Lake Okeechobee district, where the loss of life, as estimated by the lied Cross, was over 2000, with 15,000 mode destitute. The property loss exceeded 25,000,000 dollars.] ["The Dominican Republic occupies the eastern portion, about two-thirds, of the island of Snnto Domingo, the second largest of the Greater Antilles situated between Cuba on the west nnd Porto Rico on the east. The land is very fertile, about 15.600 square miles of its total area of 19,325 square miles being cultivable. Agriculture and stock raising are the principal industries, and sugar, cacao, and tohaioo the chief nroducta. The capital city, Banto Domingo, founded in 1496, has a population of about 45.000.]

THE CITY'S FATE. FURTHER NEWS AWAITED. (Received Septemer 4th. 9.20 p.m.l WASHINGTON. September, 4. Word is anxiously awaited this morning from Santo Domingo, as to the extent of the damage done by the hurricane which settled late on Wednesday on the oitv. and cut it off from communication with the outside world. The progress of the hurricane was watched in south-eastern United States, the reports of the Weather Bureau, as the storm moved northwards, being anxiously followed.